ey can, boy. Of course it's if they can with any one
who goes fishing. But I will not have them come disturbing me. The
impudent scoundrels!"

"Did you see somebody yesterday, then, father?"

"Didn't you hear me telling you, sir? Pay attention, and give me some
more ham. Yes; I'd been up to the flagstaff and was walking along by
the side of the combe, so as to come back home through the wood path,
when there was that great lazy scoundrel, Burge, over from the town with
a long staff and a hook, and I was just in time to see him land a good
twelve-pound salmon out of the pool--one of that half-dozen that have
been lying there this fortnight past waiting for enough water to run up
higher."

"Did you speak to him, father?"

"Speak to him, sir!" cried the Captain. "I let him have a broadside."

"What did he say, father?"

"Laughed at me--the scoundrel! Safe on the other side; and I had to
stand still and see him carry off the beautiful fish."

"The insolent dog!" cried Nic.

"Yes; I wish I was as young and strong and active as you, boy. I'd have
gone down somehow, waded the river, and pushed the scoundrel in."

He looked at his father and smiled.

"But I would, my boy: I was in such a fit of temper. Why can't the
rascals leave me and mine alone?"

"Like salmon, I suppose, father," said the young man.

"So do we--but they might go up the river and catch them."

"We get so many in the pool, and they tempt the idle people."

"Then they have no business to fall into temptation. I'll do something
to stop them."

"Better not, father," said Nic quietly. "It would only mean fighting
and trouble."

"Bah!" cried Captain Revel, with his face growing redder than usual.
"What a fellow to be my son! Why, sir, when I was your age I gloried in
a fight."

"Did you, father?"

"Yes, sir, I did."

"Ah! but you were in training for a fighting-man."

"And I was weak enough, to please your poor mother, to let you be
schooled for a bookworm, and a man of law and quips and quiddities,
always ready to enter into an argument with me, and prove that black's
white and white's no colour, as they say. Hark ye, sir, if it was not
too late I'd get Jack Lawrence to take you to sea with him now. He'll
be looking us up one of these days soon. It's nearly time he put in at
Plymouth again."

"No, you would not, father," said the young man quietly.

"Ah! arguing again? Why not, pray?"

"Because you told me you were q